“… there were two newspapers in the town – the Eatanswill Gazette and the Eatanswill Independent; the former advocating Blue principles, and the latter conducted on grounds decidedly Buff. Fine newspapers they were. Such leading articles, and such spirited attacks! – ‘Our worthless contemporary, the Gazette’ – ‘That disgraceful and dastardly journal, the Independent’ – ‘That false and scurrilous print, the Independent’ – ‘That vile and slanderous calumniator, the Gazette;’ these, and other spirit-stirring denunciations were strewn plentifully over the columns of each, in every number, and excited feelings of the most intense delight and indignation in the bosoms of the townspeople.” (Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers)

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In conversation with a writer, the following observation was made: “I appreciate how important deadlines are, as I miss so many of them.”

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We’ve landed men on the moon, but Camiron Lanoue of Falmouth might be only the second person to cross America on a skateboard. “I just want to show people that all the ideas aren’t taken yet, and it is completely possible to do the improbable,” the 18-year-old told the Enterprise.

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Let the good times roll! The building that housed Chatham’s classic movie theater until a pharmacy moved in back in the 1990s has been purchased by the Chatham Orpheum Theater group. There are plans to put in two screens and a café. The Cape Cod Chronicle has been a strong supporter, so much so that the organizers moved their press conference up a day to accommodate the weekly’s deadline.

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The New York Post got plenty of notice for its classic “Headless Body in Topless Bar” headline, but we appreciate the erudition of the Provincetown Banner’s “Deputy assessor takes umbrage at proposed cuts.”

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When Jim Shepard and Ann Tuttle (now Prall) loaded Chatham’s time capsule half a century ago, did they expect to be called back to empty it in 2012? The Cape Cod Chronicle reported that middle schoolers Kai Whiteley and Ricky Smith, Jr., who will load a new capsule on June 11 with Shepard and Prall on hand to mark the town’s 300th birthday, are expected back in 2062.

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Ever so slowly, Buzzards Bay is making improvements. The latest effort involves what you might call a “Walkway to the Canal” to connect Main Street near the post office, over a woodland trail, to the canal. The Bourne Enterprise devoted a big chunk of its front page to a very attractive photo illustration of the proposed amenity.

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If you’re wondering how the Cape can attract and retain young people, look to the AmeriCorps volunteer program that brings them here for a year to do environmental work. Amy Usowski was with the Barnstable Land Trust and the Eastham Health Department, and stayed on as Eastham’s conservation agent. At the end of last year, The Cape Cod Chronicle reports, she took that post with Harwich.

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It must have looked like something out of the Roaring 20s as the boys in the band boarded the Lake Shore Limited train in Boston for a ride to gigs in Chicago. The band is the Cape’s own Stage Door Canteen, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary in style with a tour of the Midwest. The Enterprise papers are in on the celebration, receiving updates from band member James Thomas.

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It was a different world on Cape Cod back in 1973 when Harwich hired college senior Tom Leach as natural resources officer, weeks before his graduation. Thirty-nine years later, The Cape Cod Chronicle reports, another June will bring another graduation, this time into retirement, for the town’s harbormaster. Talking with managing editor Bill Galvin, who has been holding down his chair at the Chronicle for about the same span of time, Leach spoke of the changes he’s seen from concentration on lobstering to cod fishing to Icelandic sea scallops. “I realized fishing never ends,” he said. “It just re-invents itself.”

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Enterprise newspapers publisher Bill Hough is the Falmouth Chamber of Commerce’s Citizen of the Year, and the occasion prompted a story that revealed the very different career path he once followed. With many newspaper people in his family tree, Hough opted nevertheless for a degree in neurobiology and was a research assistant at Case Western Reserve before working for New Alchemy Institute in Hatchville. He joined the Falmouth paper in 1982.

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An Outer Cape voice has been raised against one of the proposals made by the Special Commission on County Governance. “Details aside,” the Provincetown Banner editorialized, “’merging,’ as the recommendations put it, the Assembly and County Commissioners is, essentially, combining legislative and executive powers into one single, all-too-powerful entity – that goes against the county’s founding principles.”

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Can you imagine working side by side with the same person for 46 years? That’s what Andy Dufresne and Billy Tobia of Andy’s Barbershop in Falmouth have done. “I hate change,” Dufresne told the Enterprise. “Ask anybody who knows me. I don’t like change.” At 81, he’s planning another of his annual trips to the West Coast – by motorcycle.

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Seventeen years ago, Jean Finch of Orleans stood up for local kids who wanted a place to skateboard. Now 86, she’s ready to surrender oversight of the park behind Nauset Middle School to a successor, if one can be found. The Cape Codder’s Doreen Leggett captured her fighting spirit: “Finch was in the hospital for nine months and when she got out she was told the town was removing [the park]. ‘And I said, “No they are not,”’ Finch recalled. It was then that the wood was replaced by concrete so it would be far more difficult to disassemble and cart away.”

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Litter doesn’t have a chance when its scourge, Peter Rucker Walter of Cataumet, pedals down the Shining Sea Bikeway in Falmouth. At 67, says Brent Runyon of the Enterprise, Walter “rides the entire 10.7-mile length of the bike path every day to Woods Hole and back and stops every time he sees a beer bottle, coffee cup or candy wrapper and picks it up.” He will pick up anything except “cigarette butts and unbagged dog poop.”

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Chatham attorney Bill Riley’s sense of humor got the better of him last month when he couldn’t resist lifting a campaign sign out of a pick-up truck with plans to replace it with one for the opposing candidate. “I thought it would be funny,” Riley told The Cape Codder. “It was just dumb.” “Of course I forgave him,” said the truck’s owner. “I told him he was stupid and he agreed.”

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A really good egg: Mashpee Selectman Carol Sherman dressed up as the Easter Bunny for her town’s Easter Egg hunt.

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Wellfleet will keep its town clerk-town treasurer post an elective one after backers of a change to an appointed official couldn’t muster a two-thirds majority at town meeting. “I don’t want my Town Hall to increasingly become the fortress of people I don’t know and who don’t know the culture of my town or might not live in my town,” Ben Zehnder declared. The Provincetown Banner reported that incumbent Dawn Rickman, who’s held the job(s) since 1983 and will retire next year, got a standing ovation.

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Who says The New York Times is stodgy? Here’s a line from a recent death notice: “He is also survived by all single women in America.”

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That’s what friends aren’t for: Responding to a call from a Bourne woman who said a friend hadn’t answered her calls in two days, police knocked on the friend’s door and learned that she had been doing so deliberately following a disagreement with you know who.

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We thought Congregational churches hadn’t collected pew fees in a long time, but a local paper informs us that a Cape church “wanted to keep the congregational tenants of our faith…”

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The Cape Cod Chronicle reported that the Harwich selectmen observed a moment of silence last month to honor historian and longtime community volunteer Dr. John Roche. If we remember correctly a conversation with him some 20 years ago, he recalled being awestruck in the 1960s by the grand Exchange building that housed town meetings, a roller rink, and more until its unfortunate demolition. Roche and his wife Joyce never stopped fighting to preserve Harwich’s history; now he will always be a part of it.

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A gene for public service: The 16-year-old grandson of a woman who served on the Sandwich School Committee for 26 years has been elected by his high school peers as their representative to the board. “She was so involved and did so many great things for this community,” Owen Gaffney told the Enterprise, “and I wanted to continue with that work.”

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“Perambulation” refers to the practice of marking a town’s borders, a task usually performed by a community’s selectmen. With characteristic slyness, Alan Pollock of The Cape Cod Chronicle wrote that the Chatham and Harwich boards “searched the bushes and landmarks for each of the ‘witness marks’… They even found some of them.”